The Sophist

2015-09-10 12:00 am

Day 1:
No stoic women and no false metal,
Living the life,
Inside of a kettle.
Hopping and jumping,
Trying to escape.
Grinding my teeth,
While the symphony plays.
"Does it feel great?"
"Yeah, it really feels great."
"Now what should I do?"
"I'll cry the next day."
Weeping,
Watching the moon start to settle.
Disappear too soon below false nettle.
"With such regret I will miss when I die,
So I dream to escape the world I deny."

Day 2:
I sleep;
The moon and my mind both settle.
I no longer jump;
Steam fills my kettle.
These stoic women;
Fawns for false metal.
Living my own life;
Fit in fine fettle.

wanderer

2015-05-05 12:00 am

I lie eagerly awaiting for your return
exhilarated by the thought of your lips
once again touching my famished soul anew,
then by the light of the moon you hesitantly came,
first, a gentle, subtle caress
gingerly knocking on my sands
then 
a gradual deluge,
enveloping
consuming,
the whole stretch of my being
and as I lie prostrate ,
ecstatic with our intimacy, 

you have once again retreated silently
to the mighty vastness of your benefactor..,

But you shall never be mine,

for the ocean is a jealous lover.
and I am eternally condemned
to be your willing mistress
caught in this perpetual longing
waiting
anticipating
desiring
For the next cycle....

The Paraffin One

2014-11-04 12:00 am

This following poem addresses my peers:
Clearly this year was reminiscent of past,
In fact that nothing of value was cheered.
Clearly this problem of chance is too vast,
To ascertain we need a compass. 
None is available, so we fail by chance,
Not lack of ingenuity to justify trespass,
Nor the hypocrisy interacting with fans,
No, some invisible god blocks our path;
Impossible to pass, without empathy,
Untold giants rest among the math, 
Turtles are shells, medicine is homeopathy.
In regards to that, please take care.
Next years forecast gives me quite a scare.

The Sophist

2014-07-30 12:00 am

Once a me wan't blissing his kings.
One said, "You bring me down fool,
You'll be the next that I fling."
I know not the world, 
But knew he could toss,
He flung fools via sling.
I'm no albatross, 
I thus fear the sea;
Whose direction it faced. 
As a favor for me,
If only poor kings flung us fools to their dreams.
I dream of a land filled with kings being fool-led.
Currying favors for an all-curry feast with warm drinks
 and stale bread.
Instead I packed my bauble knife for that night I fled.
In stead understanding this king was a beast with no
 heart in his head.
Once I peaced though I pissed on his rings.

The Sophist

2014-05-26 12:00 am

If you could go back and change your life,
You look back on your strife?
Would I go back and change mine?
I look back and my life is changed daily.
For the better?
Questionable.
I look back at my life deranged gayly.
For the most part; 
Insatiable.
Satiated in my adolescence with hot knives 
hot paperclips unwinded
on hot tables 
while a hot ocean waited for hot iron;
Not able.
Enough quotes from a world of war to be the next supreme 
gentleman,
I changed my life enough to know that truth is irrevocable,
I'd choke a bull for a chance at life less like a festival 
of Bedouins negligible.

Dusti Rodes

2014-03-06 12:00 am

Bringin' it on 'ome

 One minute,
 We're jokin' with,
 The next, Pokin',
 One another.
 Sendin' silly Sunflowers,
 Exchangin' banal banter,
 Fixin' up homesteads,
 In Farmville;
 On Facebook.

 Then in a 'shanty town' ,
 On a mud-strewn hillside,
 In Brazil.

 Or down on the Delta,
 In the bayous and levees,
 On the Mexican Gulf.

 In the centre of Brisbane,
 'The Sunken City',
 In the Sunshine State.

 Out in the suburbs,
 And the surroundin' countryside,
 In the vast areas of deluge,
 Of Queensland.
 In Pakistan,
 And Haiti.

 'Friends', are fightin',
 For their very lives;
 Through no fault of their own.

 Dusti Rodes (2012)

Dusti Rodes

2014-03-05 12:00 am

" This next piece of writing, contains strong sexual content material and graphic language. Many people find it both harrowing and disturbing. It depicts and catalogues a series of true-life events. The names have been changed to protect the innocent, of which there is one; the laws of libel prevent my naming and shaming the guilty; of which there are many."

 * Reader discretion is MOST STRONGLY advised - As it may easily offend. For this I make no apologies. Events like these are happening HOURLY all over the world at this moment in time, and society as a whole SHOULD be doing more to prevent such misery "

 ........................................

 " IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE, .....CAN IT?..."

 It's Sunday,
 She's staying at dad's flat tonight.
 She adores him;
 With the trust that is naturally instilled
 In a child.

 Dave, her father,
 Plays cards with his friends;
 While she watches, smiling.
 The pot is short;
 It's his call.
 He must make amends.
 Forty pounds is the bid.

 With a knowing nod,
 Colin folds his hand;
 And taking hers,
 Leads through the door
 To she knows where.
 The now empty bedroom
 That she sometimes has to share.

 Shush - don't make a noise;
 Your stifled cries,
 Will frighten the toys.
 Who sitting in silence,
 Can only watch.
 As Colin slowly unzips his trousers,
 And loosens his belt another notch.
 Her favourite doll, alone in the corner,
 Draped across the wooden chair;
 Can but bear silent witness
 To the saddening pain
 She experiences there.

 Next day,
 She is driven to school;
 By her dad.
 In a tatty Volvo.
 Be-spotted with rust coloured
 Splodges of primer paint.
 A stark anachronism
 Of Swedish sexual liberalism
 The grubbiness of the grey,
 Mirroring the semen-soiled nightdress;
 Of the night before.
 The paint spots,
 Ghostly echoes
 Of dried blood stains
 Splattered on the white fabric.
 Heralding her lost innocence;
 That she would need to wash out
 Later in the day.
 When she finally returned
 To the living hell
 That served as home.

 He pulls in at the pavement
 Saying yesterday was fun
 And that they should do it more often.
 He tells her to take care of herself.
 Sick joke, what?
 But no-body's laughing anyway.
 Deprived of decency
 By her father
 In that he doesn't even open the door.
 She rises from the well-worn seat
 And gets herself out
 Just like countless
 Whores before.

 In some final bizarre sexual gesture
 As he slowly drives away
 He also discards the now empty
 Crumpled, finished cigarette packet
 Aimlessly through the window
 Into the uncaring street.
 It in its turn, would be picked up
 By some scavenger hard up
 On his or her luck
 Anxious to discover
 If it held any small delight.

 And on discovering not, it would
 Be consigned as worthless rubbish
 And be discarded yet again
 To a life on the streets.
 Until eventually, battered and crushed
 By countless uncompromising souls
 It would cease to be recognisable
 For what it once was.
 Circles within circles.
 Such is the life we lead.

 Four friends, sit
 Sharing girlish giggles.
 Talking tampons and towels.
 Discovering the inward
 Functioning of females
 For the first time.
 Smiles, over sharing
 Secrets of sexuality
 With their mothers.
 But she's not laughing.

 Sitting in the classroom
 She is longing to tell, someone,
 About the happenings
 Of the previous night.
 To be able to unload
 All that crushing fear;
 That is building up
 Within her frightened frame.
 Afraid to go home,
 She hangs around after class
 Anxious to explain her reasons.
 But no-one is listening.
 Nor can they read
 The pleading in her scared eyes.
 So she goes home alone, again.

 Sitting watching television,
 A break from the drudgery
 Of endless days
 Doing household chores.
 Fear strikes her heart
 As she hears the key
 Entering the outside door.

 Because the washing has taken so long
 And about it, she cannot tell;
 The dust she hasn't cleaned
 From the TV
 Only causes her mother again to yell.
 Her anger quickly turns to rage;
 Followed closely by a beating,
 And another verbal tirade.
 Then follows the shouting
 And the slapping.
 The angry name calling
 Infers that someone is a whore.
 Leading to her being pushed downstairs
 And landing on the hall floor.

 She pushes Amy into the cellar cupboard,
 Then callously locks the door.
 Leaving Amy, cowering in huddled fear,
 Upon the dark, coldest floor.
 Later, in her room,
 Curled up, tearful,
 Trying desperately to block out the pain.
 Lies listening to her sad sobbing.
 She closes her eyes.
 Escaping sleep is not easy in coming;
 But further along the hallway,
 Someone else is.
 Urgently calling for Amy
 Beckons her to her mother's bed.
 There, between thrashing thighs,
 And deep moaning sighs,
 Amy is forced to give her mother
 Sexual 'head'.

 Coming home,
 To the usually empty house,
 She cannot help but notice
 The smart car
 Parked outside.
 Putting her key
 In the door,
 As she has done
 So many, many times before;
 She is met by Geoff,
 The new man, in her mother's life.
 On the surface
 He seems very nice.
 Picnics of strawberries, wine
 And chocolate ice.
 And even washing up,
 Afterwards.

 School sports day comes,
 Giving her the chance
 To exercise her rights
 As a child;
 To youthful fun.
 Sack race successes,
 Loud accolades.
 Hiding the depths of depravity,
 That lies dormant.
 Buried deep within.

 It starts with a present,
 At bedtime.
 " Put it on, and come and show us how it looks."
 Simple games,
 Amongst the adult friends.
 Pictures are taken.
 Childish at first,
 It soon turns nasty;
 Leading to lewdness and lechery.
 Removing Geoff's trousers and pants,
 While her mother looks on;
 And laughs.
 Then starts the painful ordeal
 Of nightly rape.
 And the utterances of the threatening lie
 That if she ever dares to tell someone
 It would surely cause her to die,

 After a time,
 She can bear no more
 Of Geoff's disgusting behaviour.
 Goes to her father's workplace
 Hoping on hope
 That he'll prove to be her saviour.
 She tells him all
 That's been going on;
 And could she come to live with him,
 Please?
 Fraught with anger,
 Fired by fear;
 He goes and gives Geoff
 A beating with a garden spade.
 In his frustration at failing
 To protect his daughter
 From this pair of human animals
 With their filthy habits so degrade.
 Then he storms out,
 Leaving Amy to receive
 Yet another beating
 From her mother.
 That leads her to being locked
 In the cupboard
 Once again.
 The broken shard
 Salvaged from the shattered
 Kitchen window
 By which her father had entered
 Proves to be the key
 To successful self mutilation
 To which Amy administers
 Readily.

 When the time comes
 To leave her old school
 The teacher's reports proclaim
 That Amy is both clever and wise.
 But they all still
 Just sit and listen
 While her mother
 Continues to tell
 The same pack of lies.
 How Amy sits reading
 Quietly, in her room,
 For much of the time.
 And how she's always
 Out playing with her friend;
 But that is untrue
 From beginning to end.
 The teacher says Amy could do
 With really coming out of her shell.
 Hopes that she'll enjoy her new school;
 And with that, she wishes her well.

 Sitting with her new found friends,
 Thinking that this place,
 Could indeed be really cool.
 Then one says,
 Someone is trying to greet her,
 From a van.
 Parked outside the school.
 She peers across the open courtyard.
 At her father, who's come to meet her.

 Full of reasons,
 Why he hasn't been more often.
 Excuses that money has been
 So short lately;
 Sometimes he hasn't eaten.
 Now he's come to take her out,
 About the true reason for his motives,
 There still exists more
 Than a little doubt.

 Having bribed her,
 With a Big Mac meal,
 With Coke and a Cadbury's
 Curly Whirly,
 He apologises that he has no more sweets;
 But if only he had more money,
 He could afford to buy her
 Lots of treats.
 Then the unsubtle suggestion,
 That she could really help Daddy,
 Just by working the nearby streets.

 Standing on a dim
 Lamp-lit street;
 In her denim jacket,
 And her flowery
 Short length skirt;
 Wearing virginal white gym socks,
 with matching plimsolls.
 Her long hair , shining,
 Looking very much her age.
 Having only turned thirteen,
 But for a little while.
 People, from which she
 Should get only love;
 Blatantly exploiting her sexual genes.
 Although she cannot spell Paedophile;
 She is painfully aware of what it means.
 " For a wank, charge'em twenty five quid,
 If they want a blow-job, charge them thirty"
 Practising that will corrupt her mind;
 Into believing love and sex,
 Is always something
 That is sordid and dirty.

 A sexperienced competitor,
 In these matters,
 Gives her, and her dad;
 What amounts to a friendly warning.
 This particular spot,
 Is her pitch.
 And her pimp
 Will not be so tame;
 So her father,
 Just moves on with her,
 To somewhere else.
 In his dubious quest
 It would seem he has no shame;
 With his repeated attempts,
 To get ' on the game'.

 The local lorry park,
 Proves a likely playground;
 For the sort of games,
 He has in mind.
 Providing a service,
 For all kinds
 Of men.
 The young, the old, and the lonely.
 Not the actual full sex, though:
 But just your blow and hand-jobs only.
 Making sure that the clients,
 Come in style;
 Being very sure to use a condom,
 All the while.

 He does a deal,
 Just for a full blow-job;
 " You know how, don't you,
 just go and suck his prick;
 It'll be all be over in a minute!"
 But it doesn't just take that quick.

 Squatting,
 She gives a blow-job
 To an unknown,
 Standing man.
 While her poncing pimp
 Of a dad,
 Sits smiling,
 In his grubby little van.

 Suck, suck, sucking,
 On a dirty, crusted,
 Foul-smelling prick,
 That's making her feel
 So, so sick.
 Wondering why it is
 That when you
 Want them to,
 they can never come
 Really quick.

 And when it's finally finished;
 She finds the smell of sweat and semen,
 Has left her feeling
 Really sick.
 Dave, buys her silence,
 With a fiver.
 Then he takes her back home;
 Double quick.

 Dusti Rodes (2009)

 POSTSRIPT TO ' IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE. .....CAN IT? *

 " Children have the right to be listened to. The messages that they give us are often painful and disturbing, and challenge our capabilities to actually hear what they are in fact saying and take them seriously.
 Our conditioned instinct is to recoil from what we are hearing and deny the reality of what is being said.
 The act of sexual abuse of a child involves a fundamental betrayal of trust, and an abuse of power, which has devastating consequences for the child. Undermining the basic requirements of a child for relationships built on trust, that are both dependable and loving.
 This gives rise to the premise that children not only have to be heard but also need to be healed from the trauma of such experiences.
 The child's right to be respected as an individual person should be unquestionable; but it is a long way from being generally accepted within our society."

Dusti Rodes

2014-03-04 12:00 am

Tinning Tobacco

I know it ain't your problem, 
But jist sometimes, 
This is one hell of road
To be moving down, all alone.

It has caused me to be in places, 
I never wanted to travel to.
And view lots o' sights, 
I never did need to see.

So I'm gonna try
An' buy me a ticket
At the next station,
Then I'll be travellin' the first train out.

Yes, I'll be on that train out, 
One way or another, even if, 
I just ride the blinds.
Like I gone done, oh so many, 
many times before.

An' when that there ol' Devil, 
He comes a'knockin' at my door.
Thens they is gonna tells 'im
I'sa don'ts live here, anymore.


Dusti Rodes (2007)

Dusti Rodes

2014-03-04 12:00 am

Ode to Martha

 My muse, a Harridan hag?
 I don't think so!
 Some have familiars, in the shape of cats.
 Others have Spirit Guides,
 Which are Red Indian warriors.

 I don't do all that PC stuff,
 And say they are Native North Americans!

 Me? My muse is a wizened old woman.

 I was killing time, standing outside the Hospice shop,
 Waiting for my watch repair to be ready.

 One split second she wasn't there, I swear, 
 The next she was!
 She appeared from nowhere, I'm telling you!

 The encounter with the woman in the grey shawl.

 It took just ten minutes that was all.
 But it will last a lifetime.
 Mine.

 Was it real, or was it a dream?
 Was she a witch or a wraith?
 Merely a ghost or a gregarious goblin, 
 In disguise?

 The situation certainly had all the makings of a mystery,
 And all the trappings of a thriller.

 The people I tell just stare at me strangely.
 Who wouldn't? I ask myself.
 I'd probably do just the same,
 If it wasn't for the fact,
 That it had happened to me.

 She came from the North, or so she said.
 Irmerston is a name I recall her using.
 More than once.
 Or was it that she had relatives there?

 Was I really 'touched by an angel'?
 There was definitely ' a laying on of hands',
 As in the biblical sense.

 Could this have been an encounter of the Fourth kind?
 Hebrews thirteen has a lot to answer for.

 She said she was eighty five.
 And had been a Mormon since she was forty.
 But in some lights I would have sworn she wasn't yet sixty.
 In others, she had a face that had seen more than a thousand summers.

 I've heard of shape-shifters,
 I never thought to meet one.

 Many say I talk at tangents, 
 And maybe they are right.
 I do waffle on a bit.
 Never keeping to the same subject for long.

 Fleeting thoughts,
 Forever fluttering,
 Like a butterfly in its short life span.

 Over the last couple of years,
 The diagnosis of my chronic atrial fibrillation,
 Has caused me to consider my life expectancy.
 And to realise it may be seriously shortened
 At any time in the near future.

 But she spoke confidently and authoritatively,
 About longevity.

 Quoting several incidences of people living to a good age.
 Katherine Hepburn living to a hundred.
 Her long relationship with Spencer Tracy.
 And made it sound so matter of fact,
 That Katherine had given him a cup of tea,
 Shortly before he finally died.
 It was as if she had been there at the time.

 Her opening gambit had been to draw my attention,
 To a boxed set of Frank Sinatra records.
 Displayed in the shop window.

 As I intimated earlier,
 I'm sure I was alone outside that shop.
 And the sound of her speaking to me had startled me,
 Into realising she was standing beside me.

 She started by saying Frank had a daughter, Nancy.
 And a son, Frank Jr.
 She talked about his Mafia connections.

 When I retorted that rumours were rife,
 During all of Sinatra's life.
 But that he had never publicly admitted to the allegations.

 She intimated that the reason being was,
 That Frank had not actually done anything 'bad' so to speak.

 At that moment, she gave me the distinct impression,
 That she might have known him and his family intimately.
 But how could that be?

 I was becoming afraid of the enormity,
 Of the developing situation.
 So I made my excuses to leave,
 And she let me go wishing me well.
 We parted.
 Me going my way, she hers.

 I picked up the watch from the menders.
 It must have taken all of two minutes.
 When I suddenly realised the terrible mistake I had made,
 In cutting our conversation short.

 I began searching the town.
 Shop by shop.
 Each individual lane up and down.
 But to no avail.
 Seeming she had disappeared the same way she arrived.
 Suddenly.

 It wasn't till I was on the bus travelling home.
 Feeling thoroughly desolate.
 That I heard her voice again.

 But this time it was different.
 She was inside my head, talking to me.
 She said artists, of all kinds,
 Needed inspiration from time to time.
 And she would be mine, if I let her.

 I know now I made a mistake,
 I thought I was her 'mark' in the town,
 And she was just getting ready to put the sales spiel on me,
 To buy her that expensive bottle of sherry.
 That she said was the only one that she drank.

 She'd talked about many things,
 And how everybody had vices.
 Drugs, booze, cigarettes etc.
 She said how hers weren't too bad.

 Just a tipple now and again of the sherry,
 That could be bought in Tesco's.
 (Which had been across the way,
 From where we had been standing)
 At nine pounds a bottle.

 Here we go, I'd thought,
 Here comes the pitch;
“Hard times 'n' all, for an old lady.
 You seem a nice person,
 Could you see your way clear to buying me a bottle, maybe?"

 This is why I had up and ran.
 But instead, here was she offering me the gift!

 Some writers have residencies. I am hers.

 Where we will go from here, is any body's guess.
 Just watch this space!
 But I do suggest you don't waste your time,
 Standing outside the Hospice shop,
 In the vague hope she might just amble along.

 Because she's mine,
 And I'm keeping her!

 Dusti Rodes (2006)